Producer’s Note: «Never forget the struggle, never forget the streets» it says on a memorial plaque for a street fighter who was shot in 1997 on the Lower East Side. A slogan that comes naturally to Sensational, or you could say: unfortunately it comes naturally. He hasn’t really made it all the way, and so the rapper from Brooklyn, NYC, goes on dreaming of a home of his own where he can run around «butt naked smoking blunts». The streets were sometimes his home – when we started recording this album, he was sleeping in a subway station in Brooklyn. He sells his CD’s on the street in Brooklyn, but mostly in uptown Manhattan or in the East Village. Some of his goods are newer stuff, some are CD’s from the golden days of WordSound’s underground hip-hop in the late 90’s, financed and produced by Skiz Fernando and Bill Laswell. At that time, Sensational released the albums «Loaded With Power» and «Corner The Market» after a long break following the end of his stint with the legendary Jungle Brothers. The fourth album «Get On The Page» was released on Ipecac, Mike Patton’s freak label. That fit. Sensational called himself «Freak-Styler» at the time; he howled like a wolf and used the howling as samples, rapped through headphones, and recorded everything on 4-track. Today, he calls himself a «Guerilla Styler», he does everything himself, including sales, because the distribution channels have been closed since EFA crashed (and made WordSound lose a lot of money). I met him for the first time in Constance (Germany), at the end of the 90’s. «My name is Sensational, because I’m sensational», he introduced himself straightforwardly. Then he rocked the house for two hours straight. I have never lost sight of him since, and after two years of mailing beats and raps back and forth, the record «It’s Sensational» has been created. It’s a homage from us to him; Switzerland sends a shout out to Brooklyn, to Sensational! My music partner, MPC-Styler Bit-tuner from the cities of Zurich and St.Gallen provided the musical foundation for this album. We sometimes spent the entire night working on the tracks and fine-tuning them. Sensational recorded his rhymes in New York. Norbert Möslang, former member of the disbanded noise pioneers Voice Crack, made a remix. Jenny Pomme from the punk band Wemean sang harmony on two tracks. «It’s Sensational» is primarily being released on the Internet as a free, high-quality download – financial contributions are welcome – or order the 140-gram vinyl version, in a limited edition of 200 pieces from Quiet Records, with a wonderful cover photographed by Georg Gatsas and designed by Adrian Elsener. A CD follows. Street style. You can find us on the web, at concerts, and certainly on the streets, for example in Manhattan, in the Village, at the corner of 6th Avenue and 8th Street, in front of the legendary record store Fat Beat Records. That’s where I met him the last time, just as he came up to a DJ and said: «Hey yo yo, are you a DJ? I’m Sensational, you wanna buy my CD?» This most stubborn representative of different, crazy, absurd, freaky old-school hip-hop, companion of the Jungle Brothers, of Bill Laswell and Spectre, of Prince Paul and Handsome Boy Modelling School, could certainly use the $ 10 asking price. Support that shit! Dani Göldin, 08/30/2008, 151 Norfolk Street, NYC